All-Star Kyrie Irving will compete in the 3-point contest on Saturday of All-Star Weekend. (AP Photo)

This year, six players will compete in a two-round competition as part of All-Star Saturday Night (8:30 p.m. ET, TNT) that features a new format that will pit the Eastern Conference against the Western Conference in a night of competition.

Each conference will be competing for two charities, with $350,000 going to the winning conference's charities and $150,000 to the runner-up's charities.

Worthwhile, no doubt, but there’s another goal for the evening, one of its participants says.

"I'm just going to go out there and have fun and enjoy myself," the Denver Nuggets’ Kenneth Faried told The Denver Post of his plan for the dunk contest.

Faried teams with defending Dunk champion Jeremy Evans of the Utah Jazz and the Los Angeles Clippers' Eric Bledsoe for the West.

The Eastern Conference lineup is the Indiana Pacers' Gerald Green, Toronto Raptors' Terrence Ross and New York Knicks' James White.

The highest-scoring East competitor and the highest-scoring West competitor from the Team Round will compete head-to-head to determine the champion.

Fan voting will open at the beginning of the Championship Round and the player with the highest percentage of combined votes from all platforms will be champion.

Evans won the 2012 Dunk contest, defeating the Rockets’ Chase Budinger and the Pacers’ Paul George in a tight race that included over 4 million fan votes to decide the champion.

All-Star Saturday Night also will feature, in order, the Shooting Stars, the Skills Challenge and 3-point Contest, with the Dunk contest closing the evening’s fun.

SHOOTING STARS

James Harden, who earned his first career All-Star Game nod in his first season in Houston, and former Thunder teammate and fellow All-Star Russell Westbrook lead the West team.

The fact the Rockets’ Harden gets his first taste of the All-Star experience, including the Shooting Stars, as the event’s unofficial host, well …

"I think that made it more special," Harden said in a recent interview with USA Today. "With me not even thinking about leaving Oklahoma City, and then getting traded to Houston, and then it's my first All-Star weekend in the same year. It's all come together so well, and made it more special."

NBA Legends Sam Cassell and Robert Horry, who played a combined 31 seasons in the league and won 10 NBA championships, round out the West representation. Cassell and Horry were teammates on a Rockets team that won back-to-back titles in 1994-95.

Chris Bosh, an All-Star and key member of the reigning NBA champion Miami Heat, and All-Star Brook Lopez of the Brooklyn Nets, who earned his first All-Star nod, lead the East team.

They’re joined by WNBA Eastern Conference stars Swin Cash of the Chicago Sky, a three-time WNBA champion and two-time Olympic gold medalist, and Tamika Catchings, who guided the Indiana Fever to the 2012 WNBA title and earned Finals MVP honors along the way.

The East’s NBA Legends are Muggsy Bogues, the shortest player in NBA history at 5-3, who enjoyed a 14-year NBA career, and Hall of Famer Dominique Wilkins, a nine-time NBA All-Star, who finished with 26,668 career points.

SKILLS CHALLENGE

San Antonio Spurs star Tony Parker has a strategy when it comes to defending his Skills title.

No practice, no pressure, no problem.

After finishing last in his first two shots at the event, Parker surprised even himself by winning last year in Orlando.

“My first two tries, I was terrible,” Parker told the San Antonio Express News. “My third attempt, I was like, no pressure now. I didn’t even practice and I won it. This time, same strategy.”

Parker is attempting to join the Steve Nash (2005 and 2010) and Dwyane Wade (2006 and 2007) as the two-time winners in Skills Challenge history.

The Skills Challenge, introduced at the 2003 All-Star Game in Atlanta, features six players competing in a two-round timed "obstacle course" consisting of dribbling, passing and shooting stations.

The three West players and three East players will compete in the two-round competition. The two competitors with the fastest times from their respective conferences in the Team Round advance to the Championship Round.

Also as part of this year's event, six teenagers will be paired with Skills Challenge participants and $55,000 in educational scholarships will be awarded through the event’s sponsor, Taco Bell.

3-POINT SHOOTING

First-time All-Stars Kyrie Irving of the Cleveland Cavaliers and George headline the field for the 2013 Three-Point Contest.

Steve Novak of the New York Knicks joins Irving and George for the East, and Ryan Anderson of the New Orleans Hornets, Matt Bonner of the San Antonio Spurs, Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors represent the West to round out the field.

Anderson is the lone returning 3-point shooter from last year's event, won by the Minnesota Timberwolves' Kevin Love in a tiebreaker round over the Oklahoma City Thunder's Kevin Durant.

Five shooting stations will be set up around the 3-point line, with four Official Spalding NBA game balls worth one point each and one Spalding NBA All-Star 2013 commemorative "money ball" worth two points at each location. Each player will have one minute to shoot as many balls as he can. The competitor with the lower individual score from the Team Round will go first in the Championship Round.